ENGLISH COMMENTARY
chapter turns upon the redistribution of the material elements of organized bodies, so that the conclusion seems to be that the spirit part also must be reabsorbed ultimately. This was the view entertained by most Stoics. The end of the chapter suggests a different explanation, viz. that the soul is the form or formative principle of the body. This view probably came to the Stoics from Aristotle, but even so they held that the form was not immaterial; it was the active as distinguished from the relatively passive, and as such would return to the informing reason, and be reabsorbed therein (iv. 4; vi. 24; vii. 32; viii. 25. 58; xii. 5).
Marcus is content to leave the whole question an open one, satisfied that the spirit is in the hand of God. He nowhere indulges in the comfort of that view which Cicero and Seneca handle so eloquently, the picture of the soul enjoying a blessed immortality, as in the dream of Scipio,[1] and in Seneca's[2] 'lifted up on high, he runs his race among the happy spirits; and the sacred company welcomes him, the Scipios and the Catos, men who disdained life, and were made free by the kindness of death'.
Seneca's words perhaps suggested Milton's
There entertain him all the Saints above
In solemn troops and sweet societies.[3]
Ch. 22. Before passing to ch. 23, which gives the real answer to this question of the survival of the soul, we have the practical reminder that present duty requires just conduct, and control ot the judgement in every imagination.
Ch. 23. The thought of this beautiful chapter may be illustrated from à Kempis: 'I am in Thy hand, spin me forward or spin me back.'[4] Crossley says 'it is a good example of that intensity, which, when combined with their prevailing simplicity and earnestness, raises Stoic utterances to the level of poetry'. He thinks that Milton's sonnet, 'How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth', may have been inspired by this chapter, especially the words:
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure ev'n.
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n.[5]
